No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work

CHI 2005

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PAPERS: Take a Number, Stand in Line (Interruptions & Attention 1)

April 2–7 ‫ ׀‬Portland, Oregon, USA

No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work Gloria Mark, Victor M. Gonzalez, Justin Harris Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science University of California, Irvine {gmark,vmgyg,jharris2}@ics.uci.edu between firm downsizing, large-scale expansion, increased work activities, and higher levels of stress [24].

ABSTRACT

We present data from detailed observation of 24 information workers that shows that they experience work fragmentation as common practice. We consider that work fragmentation has two components: length of time spent in an activity, and frequency of interruptions. We examined work fragmentation along three dimensions: effect of collocation, type of interruption, and resumption of work. We found work to be highly fragmented: people average little time in working spheres before switching and 57% of their working spheres are interrupted. Collocated people work longer before switching but have more interruptions. Most internal interruptions are due to personal work whereas most external interruptions are due to central work. Though most interrupted work is resumed on the same day, more than two intervening activities occur before it is. We discuss implications for technology design: how our results can be used to support people to maintain continuity within a larger framework of their working spheres.

Why is managing multiple activities important to study? More and more studies are reporting that information workers experience multiple activities in the workplace. Studies of managers documented how they engage in multiple tasks [4,7,13,23]. It appears that managing multiple activities is becoming more recognized as a basic characteristic of work life for information workers. Understanding the nature and extent of how information workers manage multiple activities in IT-rich environments is important to inform the design of technology to support this type of common work practice. In a previous study, we discovered that information workers switched work events frequently: averaging every three minutes [6]. This previous study raised a number of questions associated with the nature of how work is fragmented. Whereas in the previous study we focused on the descriptive level of task-switching, in this paper we analyze factors that are associated with the interruption and switching of different tasks. We have expanded our observations to include almost double the number of informants to increase the generalizability of our results on multi-tasking behavior.

Author Keywords

Multi-tasking, attention management, information overload, interruptions, empirical study ACM Classification Keywords

H.4.1. [Information Systems Applications]: Office Automation—Time Management; H.5.2. [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces — Theory and Methods.

WORK FRAGMENTATION

We define work fragmentation as a break in continuous work activity. Studies continually describe how the work of information workers is characterized by spending short amounts of time in tasks and switching frequently. This has been found with managers [7,13,23], financial analysts [6], software developers [18], and even telecommuters [8]. Studies have also reported on the interruptions that information workers experience [4,7,16,20].

INTRODUCTION

Multi-tasking in the workplace is a topic that is receiving increasing attention both in the academic and popular press. Engaging in multiple activities appears to be related to the scope of work; as the scope increases so does multi-tasking [3]. Flattening of hierarchies and expansion of work roles are some of the factors proposed to explain increased and broader task responsibility [5]. Some studies suggest a link

We consider that work fragmentation has two main aspects: the length of time people spend in a continuous activity, and interruptions of that activity. In general, we consider that work is more fragmented the shorter amount of time one spends on a task, and the more interruptions one has. Task switching may be beneficial. It could serve to refresh one and provide new ideas. On the other hand, too much task switching with too many different activities could be detrimental. It often requires a start-up time to orient oneself to an activity. Spending too short of a time in a complex project could result in a low level of accomplishment.

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Though interruptions can often bring relevant information for one’s work [7,16] in many cases, resuming work after an interruption involves a cognitive cost to reorient to the task. Interruptions can become nested, leading to stress in keeping track of multiple states of tasks.

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resumed right away [16]. However, it is possible that an interrupted task is returned to at some point later in the day. We examined the extent to which interrupted tasks are resumed at a point later in the day as opposed to immediately following the interruption to find out how much intervening work existed.

These workplace studies have focused on descriptions of work tasks and interruption frequencies. There remains however, a number of questions about the factors that are associated with task interruptions and switching that could explain these phenomena. The purpose of our study is to contribute to explaining why task switching and interruptions occur through identifying relevant factors. Guided by our observations, we realized that people’s work fragmentation is affected by their interaction with others, how they are interrupted, and how their work is resumed. We therefore developed the following research questions.

In addition, we also examined how work fragmentation occurs as a function of the time of day. Hudson et al. [7] identified that managers prefer not to deal with interruptions at certain points in the day. However, how does time spent in tasks and number of interruptions change between morning and afternoon? We feel that studying these questions can inform the design of technical support to help people manage work fragmentation. RESEARCH SETTING

While attention has been given to managers’ work activities, e.g. [7,13,23], we are instead interested in a broader view of the practices of a variety of information workers. We conducted our study at ITS1, an outsourcing company providing information technology and accounting services for major financial bond management companies. We chose this field site because it fit the following criteria: 1) the workers are involved in multiple projects with different levels of engagement, 2) it is a technology-rich environment, 3) it is a fast-paced environment, typical of high tech firms where people work under deadlines and pressure, and 4) people were willing to be observed at a high level of detail.

Collocation of employees and work fragmentation. There are reasons to expect that collocated workers would experience more fragmentation in their work to a greater extent than distributed workers. Informal interactions in the workplace have been described as spontaneous and opportunistic, providing rich sources of information that aid coordination [10]. On the other hand, distributed workers lack awareness of others’ activities and interactions must be more planned and formal [17]. We would also expect that collocated people might engage in more task switching to adapt to the activities of their colleagues. For example, overhearing a neighboring colleague speak on the phone about an application inconsistency might lead one to switch tasks to help review recent changes in that application.

Within ITS, we observed the day-to-day activities of different information workers: software developers, financial analysts and managers. Two groups were observed: the JEB team responsible for the development, testing and production support of major financial modules to be used by the client, and the AUG team responsible for coordinating the settlement of transaction with banks and to keep the accounting records of the client.

Types of interruptions. We consider that there are two basic types of interruptions, following [14]. External interruptions are those that stem from events in the environment, such as a phone ringing, a colleague entering one’s cubicle, or an email signal. Internal interruptions are those in which one stops a task of their own volition. The environment likely affects the influence of external interruptions, e.g. whether one is in a closed office or open office environment. On the other hand, internal interruptions may occur if one needs a break or needs to think about another pressing matter. External and internal interruptions may affect whether and how fast work is resumed. Interruptions may also have different levels of importance. We examine effects of internal and external interruptions on task switching.

We had the opportunity to observe people who were both situated in an open office environment of cubicles and in enclosed offices. Each person has a networked computer, phone unit, and other resources such as file cabinets, reference books, and documentation. Six analysts in the JEB team have financial terminals in their cubes, where they monitor the status of trades and financial operations performed by brokers. The open office setting makes it very easy to interact with co-workers not only because of the proximity and ease of entering one’s cubicle, but because it is possible to chat with them through the cubicle walls.

Resumption of interrupted work. Why do people resume interrupted tasks? We expect that there are two basic mechanisms by which people can resume work. They can be triggered by interactions, e.g. a manager or colleague who asks about the status of a project. On the other hand, people might take their own initiative to resume a task. We examined the differences between the external and internal resumption of interrupted work.

METHODOLOGY

As our goal was to understand as comprehensively as possible how our informants managed their activities, we used a combination of three main ethnographic techniques: observation, long interviews and shadowing of informants

How often are tasks resumed? O’Connaill and Froehlich found that 41% of the time an interrupted task was not

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All company names and team references are pseudonyms.

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PAPERS: Take a Number, Stand in Line (Interruptions & Attention 1)

(the latter similar to previous time-management studies [13,23]). A researcher observed the informant at work in her cubicle or office and followed her to formal and informal meetings or other activities whenever possible. Information on the computer display, the phone ID display or in documents on the desk could be read to some extent.

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higher level units of work for which events such as phone calls are a subcomponent. A working sphere is a unit of work that has a unique time frame, persons involved in them, and use of particular tools and applications [6]. This unit of analysis differs from [4] who focused on the interruption of generic tasks such as email and phone calls. In this analysis the units we refer to are actually working sphere segments: single events or clusters of events that are part of a particular working sphere.

Notes and times taken during the observation were later transcribed into an activity tracking log inspired by Minztberg’s structured observation method [13]. The observer used a time watch and notepad to record details of the informants’ actions. The observer noted the time (to the second) and other details of the event. For example, the action and the time stamp were annotated when the informant opened a document, made a phone call, engaged in a conversation with surrounding people, or composed email. All interactions were documented, i.e. details of the conversation topic, people participating, duration and documents involved. At the end of the day the researcher asked the informant clarification questions about activities.

We used four main sources of information to assign separate events (e.g. phone calls) into appropriate working spheres. First, the informants were aware that we were trying to identify and connect their different work activities. Prior to the observation we explained the purpose of the study in individual conversations (and a group presentation). This influenced some individuals to naturally verbalize some of their activities while conducting them, without researcher inquiry. Such verbalizations typically occurred at the beginning of the day and sometimes during the day as the informant commented what they would be working on. A second source was derived from the comments made by informants while interacting with co-workers as they referred to what they were doing at the moment, e.g. “As soon as I’m done with the ATRACK stuff I will move over the R6 spec” or “I cannot take it right now, I am working on Jim’s production issue”. A third source came from informal short interviews conducted with the informants at the end of each day. The researcher asked for clarifications when the purpose or relationships with other events was not clear. For the last ten informants observed, each informant filled a form out at the end of the day in which they listed the different things they worked on. Finally in the post-observation interviews, the researcher validated the working spheres with the informant.

The study occurred in two phases over a thirteen-month period. Twenty-four people in total were observed in detail: 7 managers, 9 analysts, and 8 developers. Fourteen members from the JEB team were shadowed and in the second phase ten members of the AUG team were shadowed. The study began by observing a manager for ten days to become familiar with the work context and for the informants to become used to the researchers’ presence. Each informant was then formally observed and timed for a period of three and a half days. The first half-day was general observation to understand the context of the informants’ work. Formal observations and activity timing were done over the next three days for an average time of 25 hours, 42 minutes per person. Over 700 formal hours of observation were done. Long interviews were conducted after the observation to discuss the informants’ activity management strategies, to validate the working spheres, to inquire about further details of interactions, and to clarify observations.

Our data thus lists the start and stop time when an event happened, a short description of the event, the list of people involved in the event and the artifacts used. Based on the above additional information sources, we associated each recorded event with a particular working sphere. This association was also complemented with the analysis of other documents collected (pictures, email, printouts, etc) and with the interviews. Although an effort was made to associate all the events with particular working spheres this was not always possible. For some events we lacked enough information to assign the event and these were categorized into “unknown” working spheres.

AN ANALYSIS OF FRAGMENTED WORK

A central part of our effort was on identifying appropriate units of work to analyze work fragmentation. We observed that people were engaged in many different events across the day (e.g. phone calls, composing emails, interacting with colleagues). We first coded our data as events defined as any continuous use of a device or engagement in an interaction with other individuals [following 23]. We realized that clusters of events were related and oriented towards common purposes. Our analysis focused on how people switched among those clusters or higher level units of work. We refer to these higher level units of work as working spheres. Working spheres can be short term tasks such as fixing a problem with a client’s application, preparing a proposal, routine checking of equipment, e.g. servers, or long term projects, such as developing a new work process for the client, or the adoption of a quality program over months. Our analysis focused on how people switched among those

We distinguished when working sphere segments were completed and when they were interrupted. For phone and face-to-face interactions, the end of a conversation marked the end of the time devoted to that sphere if the individual turned to some other sphere immediately after. When work in a sphere concerned interaction with artifacts or technology, end of work in a working sphere was determined by any evidence that showed that the informant concluded work in that sphere. For example, with email use, the end of the time devoted to that sphere was the time that the email was sent if the informant changed to work in another sphere. Self323

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interruptions were distinguished from finished work in a sphere in two ways: for interactions, when conversations were stopped abruptly, and for artifact and technology use, when work was abandoned in the middle of an event, such as documents left on the screen in the middle of typing them.

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working sphere context are “disruptions”. Some informants described that interruptions outside of their current working sphere involve a high cost in remembering what they were doing in their interrupted task. In some cases, informants described that they work on another task until they remember what they were originally doing, e.g., “You forget what you are working on so you kind of do something else for a while and then you remember what you were working on.” Another informant explained that an interruption outside of his working sphere can lead him to do redundant work, “I forget what I was testing and I might retest the same thing. I’m just repeating….It happens a lot to me.” A developer explained that interruptions outside of his current working sphere that involve solving critical problems particularly impose a high cost, “…you have your mind on something else and then you have to shift completely. It is disruptive in the sense that if we are going to leave it unattended for a period of time and by the time you come back to it your frame of mind is completely different …” Thus, our data suggests that interruptions that lead one to switch working spheres are in general far more disruptive than interruptions that concern one’s current working sphere, which are even considered beneficial.

RESULTS ON FRAGMENTED WORK

We first present an overview of work fragmentation of our 24 informants, focusing on working sphere segment length and interruptions. Our informants worked in an average of 11.7 (sd=2.4) different working spheres. Based on the ethnographic observation, we realized that work fragmentation could depend on whether one is accountable for their work. We coded working spheres as central when a person has main responsibility and is accountable for it and as peripheral when she is not accountable for it. In the latter, one generally provides expertise or solves a problem for a colleague. Peripheral spheres were usually treated in an informal basis, either by phone or face to face. We divided the working spheres into three basic categories: central, peripheral, and “other”. Work in the “other” category included metawork2 (avg. of 7.96% of the day), personal work (avg. of 15.24% of the day: lunch, personal breaks, etc.) and “unknown” (avg. of 10.99% of the day: events not able to be categorized). From the ethnographic observations, metawork rarely was interrupted. As we are more interested in working spheres directly related to work, we focus our analysis on the categories of central and peripheral working spheres only. Throughout their workday people switch constantly between central and peripheral working spheres (as well as metawork and personal work).

In analyses in this paper we focus only on interruptions outside of one’s current working sphere context, as they are more likely to negatively affect work. First, we found that 57.1% of all informants’ working sphere segments were interrupted, on the average. In considering central and peripheral working spheres only, about 83% of people’s working spheres concerned work that was central to them, and 17% was peripheral. Central working sphere segments were interrupted to a higher proportion than peripheral working sphere segments X2(1)=44.91, p